Though AMD began shipping Bulldozer-based sever CPUs last week, we're still waiting until Q4 for the new architecture to hit the desktop. In the meantime, however, pre-order pricing for the high-end FX-series CPUs (codenamed Zambezi) has been leaked, giving the AMD faithful an idea of how much the new processors will set them back.

AMD Bulldozer FX-series Processors

Name

Cores

CPU Clock

L2 Cache

L3 Cache

TDP

Price

FX-8150

8

3.6GHz (4.2GHz Turbo)

8MB

8MB

125W

$266.28

FX-8120

8

3.1GHz (4GHz Turbo)

8MB

8MB

125W

$221.73

FX-6100

6

3.3GHz (3.9GHz Turbo)

6MB

8MB

95W

$188.32

If you think that these prices seem too low for eight and six-core chips, remember that Bulldozer's architecture is such that a "dual-core" CPU is actually one core with two copies of several hardware features - the CPU is visible to the OS as two cores, but physically each of AMD's cores is somewhere in between Intel's HyperThreading implementation and a "true" dual-core design - you can read Anand's original Bulldozer post for more information on this.

The Bulldozer-based FX-series processors are targeted at the high-end of the market, and therefore do not include an on-board GPU. The 32nm processors will be available in Q4 of this year for socket AM3+ motherboards (and some socket AM3 motherboards with an updated BIOS, though these motherboards may not be able to take advantage of all of Bulldozer's new features).

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55 Comments

It's an interesting post that tells essentially nothing about performance, unfortunately. BD will be a lot better in terms of power, but Turbo Core still seems pretty mediocre. There are two TC states: all cores active, or half (or less) active, as well as the stock non-Turbo state. We can see that the half-active state will allow up to 4.2GHz on the top Zambezi CPU, and 3.6GHz at the non-Turbo, but will the other TC state be 3.8GHz, 3.9GHz, or 4.0GHz?

I guess that really doesn't matter too much for the 8150, but the 8120 has a 900MHz TC range, so it might matter more. 3.1GHz stock, 4.0GHz max TC, and then somewhere in between (likely 3.3 to 3.6GHz, but *where* is the question) is the TC value for all cores being active. All this assuming the chip isn't running too hot or using too much power, I guess.

But in regards to performance, we have two integer cores with one FP core as a module, and as I stated above I expect the individual INT cores will be slower per clock than Phenom II. I might be wrong, but if not then we're looking at lower single-threaded and lightly-threaded workloads compared to Intel. For heavily-threaded workloads (e.g. not games, not casual use, and not Office work), BD might be more competitive, but we'll still need to see final performance and power figures.

In looking at the X6 1100T vs. i7-2600K (http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/203?vs=287)... idle power is similar, but load power is 23% higher on Istanbul than on Sandy Bridge, all while providing less performance in every single benchmark. So Bulldozer would need to improve performance by around 20-30% while cutting load power by 20%, just to match the i7-2600K.

AMD might still pull this off, but considering the lack of benchmark information I remain skeptical. (We saw running K8 long before launch way back in the day -- http://www.anandtech.com/show/883 -- and I seem to recall benches getting leaked at least several months before launch on some sites.) Just my feelings on the subject right now, as someone that hasn't seen any actual real data on BD performance -- leaked or otherwise.Reply

Completely in agreement. All we've really had since Bulldozer was announced has been talk about specs as well as a huge amount of speculation. You could argue that back with the K8 previews, AMD KNEW they would be the performance leaders, and that now, they'd be rather foolish to repeat that with a dominant Intel unless they had something exceptional to showcase. I also find it quite odd how they tried to use Llano to promote AMD as the better choice when this might only be the case under heavy load situations for both the CPU and GPU. It's as if they lack the confidence to tell people that perhaps Bulldozer isn't all they wanted it to be. All this stuff about releasing benchmarks etc. on a non-predetermined date is amusing yet quite infuriating and worrying all at the same time. JF may know his stuff, and he may be eager to make remarks about where Intel might be going wrong, but at least they have a proven product line. Will Bulldozer make or break them, is it that big a deal, or are they worried after making out Barcelona to be something it wasn't?Reply

Last year i built my first i7 920 system for myself and a phenom II for my brother. He had a nice 4890 and i had the gtx 260. For all intents and purposes, our comouters were identical in gaming performance. Granted, we dont play lots of games, but in l4d and l4d2, wings of liberty and a couple others, there was no difference. Now i have the i7 970 and the 285, and i reign supreme, but that seems to be a function of cores. Dollar for dollar, his is a smarter buy, while my initial system was easily 1.5x the cost of his. I think AMD is smart to give 8 cores for so little, i read long ago that is the future of cpus because of the thermal limits of silicon. More=better, though 1 AMD core is not equivelant to 1 Intel core.Reply

My assumption would be that you performed about equal because you had a better CPU, but he had a better GPU. Unfortunately, Anandtech has never benchmarked the X4 890, but the 810 and 910 both perform worse than the i7 920.

Also, you would have had a lot better price parity if you went with a Socket 1156 board rather than the more expensive 1366. Given you weren't using SLI and probably weren't overclocking, I don't know why you'd waste your money... unless 1156 wasn't out yet.Reply

I guest AMD is really playing its survival on this one and ought to have made this one the best bang for buck availlable on the market. Looks like that it has finaly integrated some design feature Intel integrated in the first Core series. What's bugging me however is the high speed of these chips. Being an architectural refresh, the next iteration is usually a die shrink. However I wonder how AMD will be able to crank up the GHZ, even at 20-22nm. Intel had to design its 3d transistors. I've got no idea how AMD will keep up with this, else than asking IBM again.Reply

Don't worry about AMD as they have quietly been working behind the seens to bring a lot of technical improvements to the X86 architecture for consumers. The one that should be worrying is Intel who will need to cut their prices and margins to compete while AMD just keeps rolling out better and better CPUs based on the Bulldozer infrastructure.Reply

I doubt it. Intel has substantial fabrication capabilities and Sandy Bridge is reasonably priced, so they'd happily pick up any slack once AMD runs out of Bulldozers to sell (assuming they do sell that well). We're not talking a return to the P4-K8 days when Intel were hopelessly outclassed, though already people are seeing Bulldozer's high clock speeds plus issue with yields as an indicator that the reverse might be the case this time around.Reply

AMD blew out 12 Million Llano APUs in 3 months with ZERO advertising and the PC laptop builders can't get enough of them. AMD has a bright future ahead of them with Bulldozer based CPUs including the Trinity APU due in '12 and the Opteronn 6200/4200 series chips shipping now which they can't produce fast enough to meet demand either. Life is going to become much better for consumers and much harder for Intel.Reply